Pedagogy of Liberation, Research, and Curriculum at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México Within the Mexican Neoliberal System

• In Event: 53.025 - Pedagogical Research Lines at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM): Toward a Dialogic Encounter With UNAM Researchers

Abstract

Objectives or purposes
The purpose of this presentation is to put US-based education researchers in touch with research representatives of Discourse Theory and Political Analysis as developed at La Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México de la Facultad de Estudios Superiores (UNAM-FES). Exemplifying a Latin Americanist approach to Discourse Theory and Political Analysis (Puiggros & Marengo, 2013), this presentation reflects on the theoretical and epistemological colonialism and resultant consequences of enterprise pedagogy in the academic curriculum.

Perspective(s) or theoretical framework
This presentation draws on critical theory and pedagogy in understanding the current neoliberal economic model that has brought the world devastating human consequences (Giroux, 1993; Puiggros & Marengo, 2013). The public school, as an on-going site of dispute within the capitalist system in Mexico, has been increasingly adjusted to absurd notions of “training” through the values of competition within neoliberal markets. Within this dispute, instructors and students find themselves in the contradictory public educational space that moves between the desire of the state to privatize academic and political resistance from a large part of their community.

Methods, techniques, or modes of inquiry
Working through notions of reflective teacher research (Cole & Knowles, 2000) aligned with critical pedagogy (Freire, 1970), this research developed a purposive sample of two groups of students in their junior and senior years at the UNAM-FES. Following reflective teacher research informed by critical theory and pedagogy, students engaged in critical thinking and discussion.

Data sources, evidence, objects, or materials
Working with groups of junior and senior-level students, data sources included informal observations, work samples, and conversations with students. These data sources were analyzed using on-going reflection and teacher experience inherent in reflective practice literatures (Cole & Knowles, 2000). Analysis focused on data patterns that emerged within the practices of teaching and learning.

Results and/or substantiated conclusions or warrants for arguments/point of view
The preliminary findings of this study reflected the contradictions of enacting critical theory and pedagogy within an institutional space that is increasingly compromised by neoliberal training.

1.Students learned to see and critique social structures, understood elements of critical pedagogy, and demonstrated these understandings in class discussions and course work.

2.Students’ nascent critical understandings of the potentials of critical theory and pedagogy were circumscribed by material realities and limits imposed by market-based common sense.

Scientific or scholarly significance of the study or work.
Overall, this study details attempts to engage students in critical theory and pedagogy in the classroom at UNAM-FES, and it adds to an international discussion on the importance in bringing democratic practices to teaching through the participation of the students. In sum, critical pedagogical reflection has to be learned by example and practice.

References

Cole, A. & Knowles, G. (2000). Teaching is research. Boston, MA: Allyn & Bacon.

Freire, P. (1970). Pedagogía del oprimido México, Siglo XXI Editores.

Giroux, H. A. (1993). La escuela y la lucha por la ciudadanía. México, Siglo XXI Editores.

Puiggros, A. & Marengo, R. (2013) Pedagogía: Reflexiones y Debates. Buenos Aires, Universidad Nacional de Quilmes Editorial.

Author

• Lucero Argot, La Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México -- Facultad de Estudios Superiores